NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations
Balloon arch with the number 90 above a Moscow metro entrance at sunset
Beautiful. The Moscow Metro, my absolute favourite ❤️
Section
· 3933 stories
Observations
NB! · Books · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture
Watching “What? Where? When?”
Watching “What? Where? When?” I am astonished that not a single person in an entire hall of clever-clogs could identify the book lift from the Lenin Library! They are practically identical in nearly all libraries. Well, well: our respected citizens stray ever further from the temple of knowledge
Books · Moscow · Observations · Heritage · Society
It is sad to see the dusty window of the Writers' Bookshop on Kuznetsky Most, closed for a year now
It is sad to see the dusty window of the Writers' Bookshop on Kuznetsky Most, closed for a year now. It is, it turns out, the oldest surviving bookshop in Moscow. One feels moved to appeal to the city authorities. In the capitalist race, not every cultural institution can
NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Humour
The New Moscow Style: the ZIGGURAT
The new Moscow style: the ZIGGURAT. Thanks for the formulation.
NB! · Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Society Pages
A Few Impressions from Arkhmoskva
Architecture · Cinema · Madrid · Observations · Rome
Roman Forum Reconstruction for the 1964 Film “The Fall of the Roman Empire”
A little more on architecture. And on cinema. For the filming of The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), a full-scale reconstruction of the Roman Forum was built at Las Matas, near Madrid. Covering 92,000 square metres, four times the size of Red Square, it became the largest
NB! · Faith · Observations
Yet Another Day on Which the Lord Will Look to Our Needs
Books · Observations
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the views which they take of them
Epictetus
Faith · Observations · People
Such Strange Goings-On
Cardinal Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI, asked John Paul II to let him retire no fewer than three times: in 1992, after suffering a stroke; in 1994, having gone partly blind; and in 1997, on reaching the age of 70. Each time the pontiff refused and asked him not
Architecture · Observations · Ethnography · Humour
If you want to give a pleasant surprise to your beloved from the house with the carved palisade, remember what the parts of a window surround are properly called
Sit down and learn them, I shall be round to test you
NB! · Observations · Humour
I do not know whether such records are kept, but I may well own the longest sofa in the world, in case one should feel like stretching out one's very, very long legs of an evening
Faith · Monarchies · Observations · Rome
The 1963 coronation of Paul VI and the later popes' abandonment of the tiara
The other day we recalled the papal portable throne, the Sedia Gestatoria. It was the very one used at the coronations of popes. On 31 June 1963 took place the first coronation of a Pope since 970 held not inside St Peter's Basilica but in the open air,